NSCC faculty exploring splitting from NSTU, forming own association

Nova Scotia Community College faculty members are exploring splitting from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union to form their own association.

“As things evolve, you have different needs,” Ferne MacLennan, a faculty member in the business school at the college’s Kingstec campus, said in a phone interview in Truro on Thursday.

MacLennan is a local representative on the NSTU’s provincial executive. She said faculty members have been investigating the creation of a “faculty-type association that the universities have.”

READ MORE: Six-year deals for NSTU members at Nova Scotia Community College

NSCC faculty members, encompassing about 850 to 950 people depending on the time of year, have been represented by the NSTU for more than two decades.

“The vast bulk of the faculty were current employees of what then was a vocational school system, and so it was natural for them to select to be represented by the Nova Scotia Teachers Union because that was what was familiar, and it fit at that time, but in the last 20-plus years, we’ve become much more of a post-secondary model,” MacLennan said.

She said it’s hard to point out a particular problem that spurred this movement, but faculty members became particularly interested in the concept over the past six-to-eight months.

“We just finished a contract, maybe that’s the time,” MacLennan said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4242643/nstu-nscc-contracts/">just finished a contract</a>, maybe that's the time," MacLennan said.

“There’s some labour tension in the province between the government and its employees, and maybe that’s what brought people forward and started looking at it, and that’s just pure speculation on my part.”

Two instructors at the college spoke to Global News on the condition of being granted anonymity, given the politics involved and the currently limited information about the potential schism.

One instructor said they were presented with a card to convey if they wanted to pull out of the union, and members spoke about the movement at a meeting last month.

“From what I’ve heard, I think it’s pretty much a 50-50 with the faculty,” the instructor said on Thursday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "From what I've heard, I think it's pretty much a 50-50 with the faculty," the instructor said on Thursday.

A significant problem for members was operating without a new contract for several years, the instructor said, and there was a growing sentiment that the union wasn’t “engaging” with faculty members.

A different instructor shared a similar view, and said the union seems to be prioritizing union members who teach Grade 12 and under.

MacLennan said that there are different cultures between that group and NSCC faculty members.

“We hope to have something clear and definitive, like a vote, within the reasonable short term or medium term,” she said.

The NSTU has about 10,500 members right now, according to NSTU’s newly-minted president-elect Paul Wozney.

“I understand there are a number of very dissatisfied and disenchanted community college local members,” he said on Friday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I understand there are a number of very dissatisfied and disenchanted community college local members," he said on Friday.

The hope is that listening to their concerns and taking action to provide what they need will remedy the situation, resulting in the members staying, Wozney said.

“I’m not a community college local member. I’m not walking in their shoes, and I am not going to presume to tell them that they should, that they shouldn’t, that they’re right, that they’re wrong,” he said. “I believe that we’re stronger by standing together.”